Finance directors must make their role as much about leadership and communication as managing money, the finance director at the Samaritans told delegates at the Charity Finance Summit yesterday.

Ward Sparrow said that finance directors should play a role as a “strategic leader, rather than being a bean-counter”, and that “it is really important to communicate in the right language”.

Sparrow said in a session titled ‘creating organisations that are fit for the future’ that communication is particularly important for the Samaritans when they are speaking to their volunteers who are “intelligent people, but not particularly financially literate”.

He said when communicating with people about financial matters you need to think how they are going to understand it.

He also said that there is a tendency for finance people to be seen as pessimistic and at “the prudent end of things”, with a responsibility to keep the chief executive in check.

But, he said, “over-prudence is not particularly helpful, and it is even less so in this day and age because most organisations need to change to move forward, otherwise they will lose their place”.

He said that to change you typically need to take a few risks, and if you are over-prudent on the financial side “you are going to get left behind”.

Sparrow told delegates that “finance has to be integrated into strategy and development and taking the organisation forward”.

He was speaking about the charity’s six year change strategy which saw its income increase by 50 per cent - to £12.5m in March 2014. Sparrow admitted that change is a long haul, but “belief and inspiration are fundamental”.